The present invention relates to a method of mining and processing seabed sediment.
At present, there is minimum activity in the field of seabed mining. It is an area that is beginning to be developed by companies such as Nautilus Minerals who use crawler techniques for mining mineral sulphides from the seabed. De Beers also use a number of mining methods. These include a horizontal system in which a seabed crawler brings diamond-bearing gravels to a surface vessel and a vertical system in which a drill recovers diamond-bearing gravels from the seabed.
Also of relevance to the present invention is the field of gas hydrate recovery. Various proposals exist to recover gas from gas hydrates that exist in geological formation below the earth's surface by a process that involves conventional drilling of a well similar to that used in the oil and gas industry to enter the hydrate bearing strata and then inducing the hydrate to dissociate by either reducing the pressure or increasing the temperature and or through chemical stimulation.